Euro Athletics Junior Champs Flash Quote - Women's 3000m
20th July 2013Emelia Gorecka – European Junior 3000m Champion – 9.12.53
I’m over the moon to finally get a gold at a track championship. About half way round I realised there was a Turkish athlete behind me, and a couple of years ago I got outsprinted by a Turk, so all I was thinking about was pushing on and not letting it happen again!
I just kept on pushing really hard and I didn’t realise I had such a big gap towards the end. I didn’t realise I was running that quickly either. I always knew the first few laps would be quite steady and controlled, and as the race unfolded I just wanted to push it on and spread things out to try and drop as many athletes as I could. I was using the shadows behind me to see how close they were, and I knew the Turk was behind me so I just kept pushing and driving towards the line.
With 100m to go I thought I was safe as I didn’t hear the crowd roaring too much like they did in Gateshead a few weeks ago. The crowd are amazing here, but I probably won’t experience anything like Gateshead for a long time. My dad was in the crowd today so that made it even more special.
It feels amazing – I’ve been a junior for four years now, so to finally have a gold medal around my neck feels amazing, and I just can’t believe it – it finishes off my junior career really well.